Flame virus attacks the internet

Big Brother is watching. No kidding. And the warning is coming from none other than Google, which says government spies may be spying on you. Some believe the Google announcement may be related to the recent discovery of the data-mining virus named "Flame." In a June 3 New York Times article, Andrew Kramer and Nicole Perlroth write:

"When Eugene Kaspersky, the founder of Europe's largest antivirus company, discovered the Flame virus that is afflicting computers in Iran and the Middle East, he recognized it as a technologically sophisticated virus that only a government could create.

He also recognized that the virus, which he compares to the Stuxnet virus built by programmers employed by the United States and Israel, adds weight to his warnings of the grave dangers posed by governments that manufacture and release viruses on the internet.

"Cyberweapons are the most dangerous innovation of this century," he told a gathering of technology company executives... While the United States and Israel are using the weapons to slow the nuclear bomb-making abilities of Iran, they could also be used to disrupt power grids and financial systems or even wreak havoc with military defenses."

Mr. Kaspersky claims he was called in to investigate the new virus on behalf of the International Telecommunication Union, an agency of the United Nations. The virus was allegedly erasing files on computers belonging to the Iranian oil ministry.

What makes the Flame virus a major potential concern for common citizens of the world is the fact that it's the first virus found with the ability to spread wirelessly by attaching itself to Bluetooth-enabled devices.

Once there, it can not only trace and steal information stored on those devices; according to Kramer and Perlroth the program also contains a "microbe" command that can activate any microphone within the device, record whatever is going on at the time—presumably whether you're actually using the device or not—and transmit audio files back to the attacker. This, clearly, has huge privacy implications were it to be deployed against civilian populations.